The Square (20 page)

What did Anya think, this monosyllabic au pair who mopped the floor and never seemed to wince at London’s excesses? How did she manage to play so beautifully? Did they even have pianos in, where was it she came from now? Weird sounding Polish place which sounded like Whoosh. Only you spelt it with an L. Imagine coming from a place called Whoosh.

She bet Anya had never played on a grand piano. The au pair’s exquisite touch left Jane feeling shallow and uncreative. It wasn’t a feeling she enjoyed having. She tries to think of Jay’s beautiful hair again. She certainly doesn’t want to hear much more music. She walks upstairs to her bedroom, thinks she might lock herself in her bathroom.

Yet Patrick, standing mesmerised at his desk in his study, has other ideas.

He hears Anya finish, the soft bump of the piano stool on the carpeted floor as she stands up, the careful closing of the lid of the grand.

“Anya!” he calls up. She comes directly to his summons. She is used to English people now and the way they operate.

“That was absolutely marvellous. Did you enjoy it?”

She nods.

“Sounded out of this world. Like having Ashkenazy upstairs. You have heard of Ashkenazy, haven’t you?”

She nods again, a slight smile flickering over her face. These people.

“I know Ashkenazy.”

“Right, good. Well, look. Please come back. Any time. I’d love George to hear you play. Maybe you could play a duet with Roberta?”

“Yes, maybe.” Anya feels slightly lightheaded after playing intently for forty minutes.

“Of course, of course. Well, you know. Come over any time, either with her, or singly, you know… on your own… ”

He looks at her unlined face with its clear brown eyes deliniated by the strong eyebrows. Those cheekbones. She smiles, but her face remains closed to him. She glances at her watch, a sturdy instrument on a slender wrist.

“I must go and collect Grace from school. Thank you so much Patrick. I’ll be back!”

“Hasta la vista bebe,” he says in his best Arnie growl.

She looks at him, startled. He waves his hand at her. Of course. She probably wasn’t even born when the Terminator films came out. Idiot.

“Film reference. Never mind.”

“Goodbye Patrick, thank you so much.”

“Come back next week.”

She turns and walks upstairs. Seconds later, he hears the front door slam.

“Wasn’t that marvellous, darling?” he shouts up to Jane who, he thought, was still upstairs dealing with Waitrose. “Like having your very own concert.”

There is no response.

If only she could come and play to me every Thursday afternoon, thinks Patrick. Then, perhaps I should pay her. To come over and play for us.

Would she be cross if he suggested it? Offended? Probably not. Funny lot, these Eastern Europeans. Send all their money home. Then they go back themselves. No notion of building a base here, even though they are in the EEC and whatnot. Or are we now all in the European Union Community? Whatever.

Would Tracey and Larry be annoyed, though? Hmm. Cross that bridge when we come to it. Probably not. After all, they were okay about hiring her out to do the washing up, weren’t they?

He makes up his mind to invite Anya over to play the Blüthner every Thursday afternoon. He’ll pay her £20 to do it. Every week. Dammit, if Alan bloody Makin can pay old Tracey to chat to him, he’ll pay Anya to play to him.

He wanders across the kitchen, humming his customary little tune, and gets a non-Diet Coke out of the fridge. Ha! Jane is absent. He rips open the can and slakes his throat with the liquid.

Upstairs, Jane locks the bathroom door and reaches into the cabinet.

Chapter Twenty-One Harriet

Harriet looks out of the window of her bedroom onto the Square. It is raining. But on the day of the Talent Show, it will be hot. Of course. Late afternoon in high summer. The hammering heat of the sun would have ebbed away but the sky would be dark blue, almost vibrating with what had once rested there, and left its imprint.

All the chairs would be lined up in serried ranks.

And Jane would have got everyone else doing menial things, like taking tickets, while she paraded in front, the conductor.

She, Harriet, would of course still be indoors. Brushing her hair and smoothing down her dress. She would have lost half a stone by now, too. No, one whole stone. Can you lose a stone in three weeks? It’s summer. You always lose more weight in the summer. All those salads.

Now, the dress. Which one would she be wearing? It would be black, no, navy. No, cream. Long sleeved, with cream ribbons at the wrists. Harriet considers she is too old for short sleeves of any description. Bingo wings look terrible when you are playing the violin. She would wear cream ribbons and a gardenia in her hair. She thinks on the image this conjurs in her head. Ribbons and flowers. In cream. It’s all a bit bridal, frankly. She didn’t want to look like a bride. Or, heaven help her, a bridesmaid. Scrap the cream.

She’d wear lilac, a shade that really suited her. When she had had that Colour Me consultation, the woman said lilac was very ‘her’. She couldn’t afford a new dress however. Well, not really. She’d have to buy it on her credit card. Or Jay might buy it for her. She believed she deserved it. It was for the performance, wasn’t it?

Harriet envisaged herself walking very lightly, in her new lilac dress and stockinged feet, into the hall, picking up her violin in its case which was just waiting there, ready for her. Almost at the same time she would slide her feet into new shoes. A perfect pair of nude heels. Jay, thoughtful man, would have already put powder in the shoes so her feet wouldn’t stick. Her feet were, like her hands, rather wide, and they sometimes had difficulty in sliding into shoes.

She would look at Jay, and Jay would look at her, in his nice suit, with tears in his eyes, and whisper ‘You go for it, girl,’ and then he would open the front door and she would see all the chairs filled with all her neighbours, sitting there waiting for her to entertain them with her singular talent.

And then Harriet would walk out into the Square, her dress glowing in the gathering twilight. Everyone would be there. And she would smile at Brian, her son, who would be sitting next to, who would Brian be sitting next to? Probably Tracey’s daughter Belle. Belle would be swathed in some sort of awful voluminous wrap with a hood. Never mind. Brian would look up at his mother and smile at her, so proud. And everyone else would be smiling. She didn’t know who. Just everyone.

She would smile back, and then walk purposefully past the chairs, up to the front where Jane would be standing waiting for her. At which point Harriet’s dream fantasy spins down, like a record suddenly losing speed. Jane, with her size 8 figure, was precisely the person who Harriet did not want to see, seconds before playing a Bach partita. She really wasn’t. Harriet was very happy to go round to Jane’s for a supper party, to pretend to be friends, to kiss on both cheeks and feign interest in her child’s education, but Harriet knew, deep down, that Jane had a sincere loathing for her. She had no idea why. She likes Jay well enough, thought Harriet sulkily. Always giggling with him over something. Whenever Harriet asks Jay what they talk about, he always has quite a believable answer, but it is never fully solid.

No, she is not going to play in front of Jane, to reveal her naked soul with her violin. Who could the presenter be?

She suddenly thought that the presenter needs to be a celebrity. Of course. It must be Alan Makin! He was the only celebrity she had actually seen off the television. And anyway, he knows about the Square. Of course! Alan Makin would be brilliant.

The television genius who everyone thinks is having some sort of
thing
with Tracey, who swears they are just working together on her show, well Alan could come to the Square and preside over the Talent Show.

Now she has fixed that in her mind, it’s inconceivable that it wouldn’t happen, thinks Harriet. So, Alan would be there, microphone in hand, and he would say ‘I think we would all like to welcome Harriet, who is going to play the third movement of Bach’s partita for solo violin in A Minor for us all. Harriet, when you are ready.’

And Harriet, who never felt a scrap of nerves when she played in public, never had, even for her Grade Eight exam at school, would stand quite still on her nude heels and put her beloved violin under her chin, and tune it with her right hand, expertly balancing the wooden instrument as if it was held by some invisible string. And then, amid the evening twittering and fluting of the blackbirds in their gorgeous Square, and a far off car alarm, and the faces of her neighbours, incredulous and surprised, she would raise her bow and begin the Baroque masterpiece…

“Mum! I have been shouting for AGES,” says Brian, striding across the bedroom.

“What on earth?”

“Oh, goodness, sorry Brian,” she replies, flustered. “I’m sorry. I was miles away.”

“It’s Tracey. She’s downstairs. She was locked out and came over for the keys, but thought as you were in, she’d stay for a quick chat. I put her in the sitting room.”

“Thanks, sweetie.”

She hastens downstairs, full of her dream.

“Tracey, you are the perfect person. I’ve just had the most brilliant idea.”

They kiss on both cheeks. Harriet sits down beside her friend, takes both her hands.

“You know the Talent Contest? You know, the thing we are supposedly raising funds for. That Jane is organising?”

“Er, yes. What about it?”

“Well I have had the most brilliant idea.” Harriet plumps herself up on the sofa as if she is a soft furnishing, and looks directly at Tracey. She so hopes her friend will back her up. It’s all part of gathering support.

“We will need a really brilliant presenter. I know Jane wants to do it herself, but I think we should go bigger than that, and get a celebrity. Do you think, could you possibly ask Alan to do it for us? Alan Makin. It would be so amazing. I mean, people would really turn up to see him. We might even make some money!”

Tracey smiles. It’s all anyone can talk about with regard to her. People have stopped asking her about anything else.

“I’ve had exactly the same idea. Actually,” she says, pausing for effect, “I asked him the other day when we were discussing scripts.”

“Oh, did you?” gushes Harriet, astonished, slightly disappointed but also excited that they have had the same brilliant thought. She grips Tracey’s hands even tighter. “Did you really? That is amazing. How amazing. Serendipity! What did he say?”

“He said he’d have to ask his agent. No, he said he’d love to,” says Tracey, deadpanning her friend. Then she laughs. She glances down at her hands. On one wrist glints a new bracelet that she has bought with what she terms her ‘Makin Money.’

“Oh Harriet, he is really quite sweet. Not the sort of showbiz celeb that you see on the TV. I think he is actually quite lonesome. He asks me all sorts of things in our little chats.”

“Oh, God, yes, aren’t you advising him or something? You’re not using that as a cover for something, are you?”

Harriet feels a bit nosy, but they are in her house, she reasons, and she hopes Tracey won’t mind. Everyone’s been talking about it.

There is an awful silence in Harriet’s sitting room.

“I mean, not that anyone has said anything, of course.”

Tracey looks at Harriet. Harriet looks back at her. The plane trees outside in the Square wave gently.

“You’re not sleeping with him, are you?”

“Oh God Harriet,” Tracey laughs, a bit too ferociously.

“Of course I’m not! Of course I’m not! I think he’s gay, not that that matters, and he says he isn’t, but I think he’s in some sort of closet. Must be! Honestly the best friend he has in the world I think is an iguana. Of course I’m not sleeping with him!”

She’s overdoing it a bit, thinks Harriet.

“Sorry, sorry. But you are being paid to counsel him, are you not? Give him advice or something?”

“Not really, Harriet, that was really hyped up by Jane and co, I fear. Actually he, you know, he just wanted some makeup advice.”

“What? Makeup advice? For him? You are joking, aren’t you?”

Tracey rather wishes she hadn’t revealed this. Alan might be cross with her. Well, she had been surprised too, after all.

“Oh, just basics. As a redhead, he looks a bit pale under the studio lights. So he wanted some tips.”

“But surely he has people to do that sort of thing for him?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think he does, but he wanted a second opinion,” says Tracey. “He likes coming here, too. He loves the Square.”

She would really like to change the conversation. She suddenly remembers a perfect way of doing this.

“You’ll never guess.”

“No, what?” says Harriet, who would much rather talk about Alan Makin and his igunana. Everything else seems a bit pallid by contrast.

“You know our lovely au pair? The Eastern Bloc one?”

“Anya?” says Harriet, dismayed that the conversation is taking a turn onto domestic affairs. Still, she thinks brightly, that girl is very nice, very nice indeed. For a Pole. Harriet has never forgotten being scooped up by her from the floor of this very room after that awful moment when the chair collapsed.

“Yes, Anya. Never know if anyone else knows her name. Anyway guess what?”

“Well, what? Come on, spit it out.”

“She’s started playing the piano at Jane’s.” Tracey pauses dramatically.

“For Patrick!”

“What?”

“Yes. Apparently Roberta, you know, the piano teacher that everyone seems to have in their houses, organised it for Anya to go and play their grand piano. She’s very good, has played since she was tiny. Obviously she had a mother FAR better at getting her to practise than me with Belle, since the things she plays are just out of this WORLD. It’s like living with bloody Liberace. Anyway, so she was playing away the other day and Roberta heard her on our crappy old upright and made it so that she could go round to Patrick and Jane’s.”

“And? What?”

“Patrick heard her playing Mozart and thought it was so… what did he say to me… so ‘transcendent’… that he is PAYING her to play for him every week.”